Block N Load Preview

I can’t think of a game in recent years that has left me as conflicted as the Block N Load beta. I spend much of my time getting frustrated with odd crashes and minor bugs, but clearly forgiving them as this is a beta, then all of a sudden just having a wonderful time. Yet finishing up unable to decide if I want to play the full release or not.

So what is Block N Load? You see, that is where things are difficult, because it is a jack of all trades, but a master of none.

It is part Minecraft, part tower defense, part FPS. It is as though fans of Minecraft, Team Fortress 2 and Orcs Must Die all got together and couldn’t quite decide on the best overall concept for their game, thus went for throw everything into the mix and see what happens.

Yet, at the same time, that is doing the game a major disservice, because despite the mix of genres, it feels like a coherent experience. Not perfect, still needing a lot of work, but coherent none the less and that is because the team managed to gate off each of the mechanics really well.

The set up allows you to build and set up defenses to help protect your base or help achieve one of the many goals depending on game type, once that timer hits zero it becomes all out war as the fast and frantic action takes over.

Once again the FPS mechanics aren’t overly complicated and fit well with the pick up and play style of the game, using the well known controls to allow you to jump right in. The fact that the FPS part of the game is competent helps keep the game fun, as you never really feel like you are fighting against sub par mechanics.

In the beta there are a healthy amount of environments to battle in and six character types which do a fine job of adding variation to each session, in fact thus far the claims of the developers that no two games will be the same has pretty much rang true, but it will be interesting to see if that holds up later down the line.

I managed to put a good number of hours into the beta and I’m torn, I really don’t feel any particular need to keep playing right now, but I am looking forward to the full release and will certainly dip back in to see where this ends up.

This works as a taster, but we do recommend just waiting and seeing what the full game turns out like.